Luca Buratta
Univeristy of Turin
Backtracking reasoning poses two challenges for theorists of subjunctive conditionals (counterfactuals). The first concerns the distinction between forward and backward counterfactuals: the former state that if something had been different, later events would have been different, whereas the latter state that if something had been different, earlier events would have been different. This raises a central question: can we provide a unified account of forward and backward counterfactuals? The second challenge concerns the distinction between non-backtracking and backtracking readings of forward counterfactuals. The former arises when we ignore the causes of the antecedent and focus only on its consequences, whereas the latter arises when we take into account the conditions under which the antecedent would have occurred and reason about its consequences in the resulting scenario. How can this distinction be explained?
This paper examines how variably strict theories of counterfactuals – according to which a counterfactual “if $\phi$ had been the case, then $\psi$ would be the case” is true at a world $w$ if and only if $\psi$ is true at all the closest worlds to $w$ in which $\phi$ is true – address these challenges. Its main results can be summarized as follows. First, our pre-theoretical evaluations of counterfactuals suggest the need for ramps ,i.e., smooth realizations of the antecedent. Second, ramp-based accounts can provide a unified treatment of forward and backward counterfactuals. Third, such accounts conflict with the standard strategy adopted by variably strict theorists to explain the two readings of forward counterfactuals, namely the sharp separation between backtracking and non-backtracking contexts. An alternative explanation, that appeal to context-sensitivity of counterfactual without positing different “kind” of contexts, is proposed as a way to overcome this difficulty.
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SOPhiA 2026 